By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC
It was fun to blaze a new trail as we held the first ever online conference annual meeting in the Covenant. When talking with Pastor Daron Jagodzinske (Alive, Poulsbo) a couple of weeks ago, he joked and declared that he thought it would be our largest ever. It wasn’t quite that, but certainly a much larger meeting than normal with over 150 delegates from 50 churches that were seated and 160 individuals that came into the “general conferee” stream over YouTube Live. Of course that included viewers like my mom though!
We ran much longer than we thought (so sorry delegates!), but we were so pleased with everything going smoothly, essential business accomplished, lessons learned (fill out your evaluation please!), watching all those behind the scenes serve Jesus, and you all, so diligently and excellently (go team!), and sensing God’s overall favor. We give Him all the glory and honor.
The one regret I did have is that I ended up cutting out part of what I was going to share at the end of my report that I was able to share with our ministers during the Ministerial Association Annual Meeting an hour earlier. I reflected on Ephesians 4:11-13.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
This passage is often referred to as the APEST or the “five-fold gifts of the Spirit” passage: apostle, evangelist, prophet, shepherd, teacher. It is seen as an essentials list for the church to grow, mature, and flourish. Don’t we all want “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read Alan Hirsch’s works on the five-fold gifts and the mission of the church overall. Check out Forgotten Ways, The Permanent Revolution, The Shaping of things to Come, 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ, and his most recent Reframation: Seeing God, people, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames. I am inspired by Hirsch’s convictions. If you are less familiar with the five-fold gifts, here’s his primer.
I challenged our ministers and will do so here to look at these gifts as areas of focus in your church as well. Let’s get through each.
Apostles – This gift have become front and center with Stay at Home. This is our expansion impulse. In this area we are thinking about bridging to new opportunities, going to new places, exploring new ideas, and starting new things. Being forced out of our normal rhythms and into online spaces demanded us to let this often dormant gift – because we don’t like change – to flex its muscles. There has been such a beautiful and inspiring explosion of creativity and intentionality these days. We’ve seen greater intentionality to connect with neighbors and serve our communities. We’ve moved out of our buildings to make connections outside. We’ve become more sensitive to the vulnerable and the under-resourced. How do we not muzzle this gift when things begin to shift out of quarantine? How do we keep exploring and experimenting? How do we keep stepping out in boldness and faith?
Prophets – This is the gift that points us to what needs to change. It’s the gift that calls out what needs to stop and calls us to better understand what fidelity to God should look like. We are learning important lessons about what is truly necessary and what isn’t in these days. As we move ahead, it is an opportune time to shed practices and programs that have kept us from our true identity as the Church. Let’s not be like God’s people that didn’t listen to the prophets and kept following their own ways, preferences, and comforts. What needs to change? What do we need to let go of?
Evangelists – We’ve seen larger numbers logging into Sunday services. With our new rhythms, we’re having more conversations with people in our spheres. We’ve become even more aware of our human fragility and more sensitive to eternal realities that weigh in the balance. As God opens up new opportunities for people to hear and experience him, how do we fan this always-too-small flame? We are missionaries. We are practicing expert disciple-makers. We are carriers of God’s shalom in our towns and cities. We are ambassadors of reconciliation. We are friends on mission together. You will absolutely need to put a concerted effort and commit extra energy into this. Don’t lose this mission moment as you relaunch, essentially like church plants. You will need to pour specific attention into this because it always gets diminished because we are selfish beings. Let us not be reluctant givers of God’s gifts. Let our generous hearts lead us in evangelism.
Shepherd – Generally speaking, Covenant pastors and churches are more focused around this and the next gift. This gift and area of ministry is vitally need to help minister amidst the trauma that’s been experienced during this time with economic and relational stresses, losses of milestones (funerals, weddings, graduations, etc), moral injury medical staff and first responders have been experiencing, fear of disease/death especially for our older folks, separation from loved ones,… shepherds and shepherding ministries are some of what we’ve done so well and I know we’ll continue to do well. Shepherds will also need to help guide us into next steps as we traverse new and treacherous terrain. Shepherds will keep us together while we keep moving ahead.
Teachers – We’ve learned a lot about new methods and found new opportunities to teach and learn. We’ve learned a lot about our the place of our preaching ministries, closed-end online class opportunities, and creative discipling. We must capture these good lessons and see what we carry forward with us. We also must make sure we foster a culture of being life-long learners. We must avoid being full of too much knowledge. We cannot get stuck living in a world of ideas in a way that doesn’t result into transformed lives and kingdom action. What we’ve done in the past is a foundation for us, but it is not the roadmap into the future. What are we learning about our complex mission field? May our growing knowledge be inseparably wedded with our evolving, expanding missional work.
So, in all of these considerations, my prayer coming out of our Annual Meeting Celebration is that you will be built up, as you grow in unity and unify in mission. I pray that you continue to grow into the fullness of Christ and overflow with hope. May the five-fold gifts be present in your church. May these areas of ministry be ever growing in your church. As you continue to follow Jesus in these days, I pray that life and ministry would clarify as you are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.